


♥Beat

by TenYearMan



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Late Nights, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Quiet and soft and a little sad, no talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 20:52:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7189757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenYearMan/pseuds/TenYearMan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos worries, and it's rarely without good reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	♥Beat

**Author's Note:**

> So I've had like half of this sitting around in my 'unfinished' folder for well over a year, now. Thought I'd polish it up and post somethin' a lil sweet.
> 
> As an aside, I haven't actually listened to WTNV since before Dylan Marron joined the cast; huge apologies for any blatant divergence from current canon.

It was silent in the room, save for the beat-beat-beat of two or more hearts, and the barely-audible breaths of two or more men, the rustle of cloth and the rise and fall of exactly two chests, almost in unison.  
It was not, in fact, that silent.

Cecil snored. Cecil smoked. Those were things that Carlos had found out later, after they’d been together for some time, after the dates and the tragedies and tears and blood. 

Carlos wasn’t perfect. They’d found that out, too. He chewed loud and worked late and forgot things. Sometimes important things. 

But that truly wasn’t the end of the world. No, the end of the world was not for a while. And until the time came, they would share a bed in Cecil’s neat apartment, with his paisley-covered couch and his unreliable coffee maker and his oddly scented shampoo – like nighttime and comfort. 

Carlos couldn’t sleep. His mind raced with far too many thoughts and his body thrummed with anticipation though for what, he couldn’t say. What he could say was that Cecil had gotten back that afternoon from another re-education at City Hall. And that he’d been tired and uncharacteristically irritable and hadn’t told Carlos exactly why he’d been re-educated, only that Management and the Council had required it. He spent a lot of his time at City Hall, getting re-educated, actually. What they did to him there, Carlos didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, to be perfectly honest. But now Cecil had a scar, long and wicked, running down his chest between his collarbones and all the way to his navel. It faded even as Carlos watched it, propped up on his elbow, and wasn’t that just a curious thing? A scientific phenomenon that was so absurd, so very against everything Carlos had ever known that he wondered for a brief moment if perhaps he hadn’t lost his mind. 

He touched it, the raised flesh on Cecil’s sternum, traced the line with his fingers and no, he couldn’t be mad. It was real, and it was healing, leaving in its’ wake smooth skin illuminated by the moon in stark patches, a sliver of light on his jaw, on his arm, his stomach. Carlos felt compelled to kiss them, and so he did, feeling the man stir under his lips and curious touches until a pair of eyes, black as the very void from which Cecil was undoubtedly cast, opened, and a small, tired smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t -“ Carlos was cut off mid-apology as Cecil brought a finger to his own lips, pursing them and shaking his head. Right, of course. Carlos had already forgotten about the mandatory, city-wide silence between sundown and sunup. Unfortunately, even the Council couldn’t seem to quiet the sound the nature, and as a coyote howled in the distance, the sound sharp and clear through their open window, Carlos shifted, rolling half-on top of Cecil and then pulling himself up to his hands. They’re face-to-face, Cecil tipping his chin back to look at him fondly, a hand coming up to card the hair away from his forehead, again and again since the stubborn locks refused to stay back. _God_ , how Carlos loved him. That strange, eccentric man who had claimed his infatuation before they’d even met, whose voice had lulled Carlos to sleep more times than he dared to count, who smelled and sounded like home. Carlos dipped his head, pressing a kiss to the scar, which was by then nearly gone, and then lower, down and down from the tip of the incision to the base, where it ended an inch or so from Cecil’s bellybutton. Cecil, for his part, did little more than continue to pet his hair, hand trailing after Carlos, twirling a lock between long fingers before tossing it away in favor of another. 

The scar was gone, but Carlos pressed on nonetheless, kissing his way back up until his lips were on Cecil’s neck, his jaw, his lips, until their tongues were pressed together and Cecil’s fingers dug into his hair with alarming intensity, the pull just the wrong side of painful. Carlos reared back with a sharp gasp, which was immediately shushed by another kiss. 

Cecil had been _scared_ , Carlos realized somewhere between the stinging of his scalp and the copper on his tongue. Cecil had been terrified of whatever had been done to him at City Hall. Carlos wondered, briefly, if this was how it happened every time, if Cecil went in knowing something vile would happen to him, went in not knowing if he would even come back out, and the next day returned to the radio station ready to say something that would once again incite the wrath of Management. So Carlos pressed into those kisses, let that hand pull and tug at his hair until he was sure Cecil would pull away with tufts of it caught between his fingers. 

That didn’t happen, and as the seconds turned into minutes so did their desperate embrace soften.

Carlos pretended there weren’t any tears, and Cecil’s cheeks remained dry even though his eyes were not. Carlos kissed his wan smile, and then again, over and over until Cecil was no longer not-crying and instead biting back some little noise or other, the corner of his mouth quirking up as he tried to keep up with the quick pecks and failed miserably. The tension was still there, in the crease of his elegantly shaped brows and the way he held himself, spine straight and shoulders back even in bed, but genuine amusement was a start. 

The bed creaked under them, another break in the silence that could get one or both of them in trouble, but neither Carlos nor Cecil seemed to notice, both caught up in the press of warm hands to warm skin. Carlos kissed him again, something nearly perfunctory, then pressed a dark hand to Cecil’s ribs and coaxed him over onto his stomach. 

There had been a few more scars there - smaller, shorter, fanned out like claws or hooks or teeth - but those too were gone by this point, nothing but smooth skin and the rare bump of a mole (completely benign; Carlos had requested that Cecil get them checked, regularly).

He kissed the two on Cecil’s left shoulder while Cecil got comfortable, tucking both arms under a pillow and turning his head to watch his scientist go through the process that all scientists went through when they made a new discovery or revisited an old one. 

Carlos was always meticulous. Pressing his mouth to Cecil’s skin in a line from one shoulder to the other, he stopped where he’d started on the opposite side, lingering there just to listen to Cecil breathe. They were even, slow inhales, the kind that were too deep for a man who was asleep, but spoke of relaxation and comfort in the aftermath of something exhausting. When he peeked, Cecil’s eyes were shut, and the furrow between his brows was smooth. Carlos kissed it, as well, and saw the corner of Cecil’s mouth curl up. 

The desperate flurry from earlier had long-since passed, leaving only exhaustion and a comforting sort of weariness in its place, but Carlos kept on with his task. He kissed the nape of Cecil’s neck (something done more for himself than for his boyfriend), tasted the hot pulse of blood under his skin, then worked more kisses down his spine, under the thin sheet and to the small of his back, which dimpled before turning into the curve of his buttock. Carlos didn’t linger there, didn’t go much lower beyond where the waistband of Cecil’s underwear usually sat, pecking small kisses all the way back up. 

Cecil was there. Cecil was safe, and though Carlos still traced the ghosts of scars when Cecil twisted into his arms - back pressed to Carlos’ front like Carlos could ever truly protect him - he supposed in the end he was grateful for whatever Night Vale was. Without it and it’s dangers, he wouldn’t be there, and without it he wouldn’t of met Cecil, or his warmth, or his dedication. 

Carlos didn’t believe much in fate, nor in soulmates, but there undeniably something in the way he held Cecil a little tighter and felt like this was meant to be, there in the darkness of the night with the city-wide silence and the final, choked-off howl of a coyote in the distance.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come chat with me on my tumblr ♥♥ ](http://tenyearsexperienceman.tumblr.com/)


End file.
